The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Friday, April 5, 2013

by Sally ZahavSalubrius*, anindefatigable champion of Jewish rights in the Land of Israel, recently shared with me his frustration when he tried to address an article in Wikipedia on the Levy Reportthat was biased against Israel. The letter follows:

Dear Sirs,

Your entry on The Levy Report includes the following:

"According to the Jewish Daily Forward, the report's claim, contradicting the world community's interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, is based on “an eccentric legal doctrine that’s been circulating for years on the fringes of the far right”. Its advocates assert that the resolution of the post-World War ISan Remo conference which
called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the
Jewish people” retains its validity to the present day and constitutes a
binding international commitment to make all of historic Palestine as under the British mandate into a Jewish state.[10]"[Salubrius's emphasis]

However
you have excluded from the entry the views of those who show that
competing Arab-Israeli claims to the political rights to Palestine were
adjudicated at the Paris Peace Conference and its extension at San Remo
according to many distinguished lawyers with whom I, a lawyer, agree.
These opinions show that the WWI Principal Allies recognized World
Jewry's ownership of the political rights to Palestine. What you have
included is based on a single sentence of ad hominem that those who
credit the Mandate as providing for a Jewish National Home as a prelude
to a reconstituted state are those "espousing an eccentric legal
doctrine that has been circulating for years on the fringes of the far
right". You ignore the citations to a memorandum of the British Foreign
Office dated September 19, 1917 showing that the Balfour policy (and
later the mandate) was to set up a trust for the political rights
recognized as belonging to World Jewry so that no immediate sovereignty
would be recognized, but that the sovereignty would be vested only after
the Jews in Palestine attained a population majority.

You
ignore the views of Dr. Jacques Gauthier in his monumental work
"Sovereignty Over the Old City of Jerusalem: A Study of the Historical,
Religious, Political and Legal Aspects of the Question of the Old City",
Thesis no 725, University of Geneva, 2007; lawyer Howard Grief's
comprehensive legal tome of 732 pages and 1300 citations entitled "Legal
Foundations and Boundaries of Israel under International Law" Mazo
Publishing; Salomon Benzimra, The Jewish People's Rights to the Land of
Israel, Amazon-Kindle, November 2011, Dr. Cynthia D. Wallace
"Foundations of the International Legal Rights of the Jewish People and
the State of Israel" Creation House (2012) and the Levy Report of former Israeli
Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy, former Foreign Ministry legal
adviser Alan Baker and former deputy president of the Tel Aviv District
Court Tchia Shapira. My own legal opinion reaches the same conclusion
although it relies on equity jurisprudence to a slight extent.

In
other words, you credit a single sentence of ad hominem in a left wing
magazine, admittedly affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, written by
a journalist who has no legal qualifications whatsoever, over the
published opinions of many lawyers citing credible sources for their
major and minor premises, and showing reasoned conclusions. Your
action casts great doubt on the objectivity of your publication,.

Cordially,

Wallace Edward Brand

*Salubrius is the nom de guerre of Wallace Edward Brand, retired attorney living in Virginia. Salubrius subsequently tried to add the following text to the entry:

"Other views

There are many lawyers
who believe that in 1967 the Israelis "liberated" Judea, Samaria and
East Jerusalem rather than "occupied" them. This was because the Jews
have been owners of the political rights to Palestine since the WWI
Allies decision on the claims of the Arabs and the Jews to the political
rights to Palestine. The adjudication on this issue commenced at the
Paris Peace Conference and it was disposed of at a further meeting in
San Remo in April, 1920.At that meeting the WWI Principal Allies
decided to recognize world Jewry as the owner of the political rights to
Palestine but also decided to put them in trust. That was because at
the time the Jewish population of Palestine was only a small
minority and to give them immediate sovereignty would create an
antidemocratic government. The trust was intended to last until the Jews
by their development of Palestine permitted immigration from the
diaspora that would permit the Jews to attain a majority of the
population and to become just as capable of exercising sovereignty as
any modern European state. This intention is shown in a memorandum of
the British Foreign Office on July 19, 1917 by Arnold Toynbee and Lewis
Namier. The memo's principal purpose was to defend the proposed Balfour
Policy against charges by critics that it would establish a
minority government that would be antidemocratic. The Foreign Office
responded to the criticism by saying it agreed in principal that it
would be antidemocratic to set up a minority government, but as it was
proposed to be applied the criticism would be "imaginary". That was
because the political rights to Palestine were to be given in trust to
Great Britain or the US who would exercise legal dominion over them
until the Jews in Palestine had attained a population majority and were
deemed capable of exercising sovereignty. See Duncan Campell Lee, "The
Mesopotamian Mandate". May, 1921 The trust agreement or "mandate" for
Palestine gave the trustee power to legislate and administer and enforce
law in Palestine during the term of the trust.The San Remo
Resolution adopted the Balfour Policy in 1920 and was confirmed by the
League of Nations in 1922 and by the US in 1922 by a joint resolution of
Congress and in 1924 by a Treaty, the Anglo American Convention. This
recognition of political rights by the League of Nations and the US was
preserved on the demise of the League by Article 80 of the UN Charter.England
abandoned its trust responsibilities in 1948. In 1947 the UN voted to
recommend partition of Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs. The
Jews agreed to give up some of their political rights to Palestine
preserved in Article 80 of the UN Charter. The Arabs rejected the
recommendation and went to war against the newly created state of
Israel. The Partition recommendation therefore had no continuing force
and effect except to show that the UN deemed that the Jews were capable
of exercising sovereignty. By 1950 the Jews had attained a population
majority within the Armistice lines.Currently the Jews have an 80%
majority of the population within the Green Line. Should it annex Judea
and Samaria, and grant citizenship to all the Arab residents of Judea
and Samaria, its majority would decline to 66% according to Ambassador
Yoram Ettinger based on studies by the Begin-Sadat Center in Jerusalem.This
legal opinion is my own, but it adopts with only very minor
differences, the legal opinion of Jacques Gauthier in his 13,000 page
doctoral thesis, the opinion of Howard Grief in his comprehensive some
600 page "Legal Foundations and Boundaries of Israel under International
Law", a shorter book setting forth the historical facts on which this
opinion is based by Salomon Benzimra published in November, 2011, by
Amazon on Kindle, The Jewish Peoples Rights to the Land of Israel, the
legal opinion of Cynthia D. Wallace in "Foundations of the International
Legal Rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel" and the Levy
Report, the opinion of former Israel Supreme Court Justice Levy and two
other distinguished jurists. See also, the legal opinion of Professor
Eugene Kontorovich in his lecture, "The Legal Case for Israel".http://www.torahcafe.com/professor-eugene-kontorovich/the-legal-case-for-israel-video_33fb484b5.html My
own opinion may be found published in greater detail in a two part Op
Ed in a conservative newspaper published in Israel. Part 1: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11408Part 2: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11412The
Arabs continue to claim, in massive public relations campaigns that
they own Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem if not all of Israel. Ronn
Torrossian, "Arab Nations Hire Ten More PR Firms Since Last Year"http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ronn-torossian/arab-nations-hire-10-new-pr-agencies-since-last-year/ "

But, according to Salubrius, "My
addition didn't last very long. Wikipedia quickly removed it Now
they have added more ad hominem from some other left wing organizations
and one left wing lawyer spouting even more ad hominem." He suggests to "tell that guy who claims to be a lawyer for
Yesh Din that as of April 25, 1920, the date of the meeting at San Remo,
the question of whether the Arabs or the Jews owned the political
rights to Palestine was res judicata and if he doesn't
know what that means, tell him to ask a real lawyer. If he is a real
lawyer and knows trust law, he should be asked of what was Great
Britain trustee? What was the trust res? And he should answer 'the
political rights to Palestine'. Then he should be asked, if so, 'who was
the beneficiary of the trust'. And it is pretty clear that it is World
Jewry that was the beneficiary and that the Jewish National Home that
was created was the term that referred to the prelude to the Jewish state while the
trustee still held dominion over the political rights. The Jews now
have an 80% population majority. If they had
read the citations I gave them, they would have learned what the
contemporary understanding of the Balfour policy and the Mandate were:"

"In
the British cabinet discussion during final consideration of the
language of the Balfour Declaration, in responding to the opposition of
Lord Curzon, who viewed the language as giving rise to the presumption
that Great Britain favored a Jewish State, Lord Balfour stated: "As to
the meaning of the words 'national home', to which the Zionists attach
so much importance, he understood it to mean some form of British,
American, or other protectorate, under which full facilities would be
given to the Jews to work out their own salvation and to build up, by
means of education, agriculture, and industry, a real center of national
culture and focus of national life. It did not necessarily involve the
early establishment of an independent Jewish State, which was a matter
for gradual development in accordance with the ordinary laws of
political evolution." The key word here was 'early'; otherwise,
the statement makes it quite clear that Balfour envisaged the eventual
emergence of an independent Jewish state. Doubtless he had in mind a
period somewhat longer than a mere thirty years; but the same could also
be said of Chaim Weizmann."[38]

Salubrius continues:

"According to Lloyd George, one of Churchill's contemporaries, for example, the meaning was quite clear:

There
has been a good deal of discussion as to the meaning of the words 'Jewish National Home' and whether it involved the setting up of a
Jewish National State in Palestine. I have already quoted the words
actually used by Mr. Balfour when he submitted the declaration to the
Cabinet for its approval. They were not challenged at the time by any
member present, and there could be no doubt as to what the Cabinet then
had in their minds. It was not their idea that a Jewish State should be
set up immediately by the Peace Treaty without reference to the wishes
of the majority of the inhabitants.

On the other hand, it was
contemplated that when the time arrived for according representative
institutions to Palestine, if the Jews had meanwhile responded to the
opportunity afforded them by the idea of a National Home and had become a
definite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a
Jewish Commonwealth. The notion that Jewish immigration would have to
be artificially restricted [as it was in 1939] in order to ensure that
the Jews should be a permanent minority never entered into the heads of
anyone engaged in framing the policy. That would have been regarded as
unjust and as a fraud on the people to whom we were appealing."[39]

If
there is any further doubt in the matter, Balfour himself told a Jewish
gathering on February 7,1918: "My personal hope is that the Jews will
make good in Palestine and eventually found a Jewish state. It is up to
them now; we have given them their great opportunity."

This ends Salubrius's communication on the subject. To find out more about how information is accepted or rejected by Wikipedia, I searched for the phrase "who controls Wikipedia". Most results mentioned that anyone can enter information, and that there's not an army of verifiers investigating every claim or every data point.

One of the results of my search, "Zionist Control of Wikipedia", especially caught my eye. Judge for yourselves, in light of the above information, whether Zionists are controlling Wikipedia.

Sally ZahavSource: Original Post at Middle East and TerrorismCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

by Barry RubinWhile far too late, the Obama administration may be adopting a
sensible policy on Syria. The strategy, however, is unlikely to succeed.
Oh, and there is also a very important clue—I think the key to the
puzzle—about what really happened in Benghazi.

Let’s begin with Syria. As U.S. officials became increasingly worried
about the visible Islamist domination of the Syrian opposition—which
their own policies had helped promote—they have realized the horrible
situation of creating still another radical Islamist regime. (Note: This
column has been warning of this very point for years.)

So the response is to try to do two things. The first is to train,
with Jordanian cooperation, a more moderate force of Free Syrian Army
(FSA) units. The idea is to help the non-Islamists compete more
effectively with the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafist, and especially
al-Qaeda (Jabhat al-Nusra group) affiliated units.

The second is to create a buffer zone along Syria’s borders with
Jordan and perhaps later Israel and even Iraq in order to avoid the
conflict spilling over—i.e., cross-border jihad terror attacks—to those
countries.

“The last thing anyone wants to see is al-Qaeda gaining a
foothold in southern Syria next to Israel. That is a doomsday
scenario,” said a U.S. diplomat in Jordan who was not authorized to
speak publicly on the subject.”

Someone has also figured out that it isn’t a great idea to have a
border with Iraq controlled by Syrian Sunni Muslim terrorist Islamists
allied with the Sunni terrorists in Iraq who killed so many Americans.

Well, might someone not have thought about that a year or two ago?
Because, while nothing could have been more obvious there was no step
taken to avoid this situation happening.

I should point out an important distinction. The problem is not
merely al-Qaeda gaining a foothold but also other Salafists or the
Muslim Brotherhood doing so. That, however, is not how the Obama
administration thinks. For it, al-Qaeda is evil; the other Salafists
somewhat bad; and the Muslim Brotherhood good.

What are the problems here? As so often happens with
Western-formulated clever ideas to deal with the Middle East, there are
lots of them.

–The United States has stood aside or even helped arm the Islamists
through Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. So now the Islamist forces are
far stronger than the non-Islamists. That cannot be reversed at this
point.

–The idea of border areas will create a Syria that is divided under
the control of different forces. What will happen when, through
elections or other means, the Muslim Brotherhood takes political power
and wants its militia to control everything?

–Might this be laying the basis for a second Syrian civil war in
which the Islamists band together against the FSA? In other words, here
is this buffer zone that is backed by the West (imperialism!) to
“protect” Israel (the Zionists!), Jordan (traitorous Muslims!), and Iraq
(Shia heretics!)

–The training is limited and the FSA is badly divided among different
commanders, defected Syrian army officers, and local warlords. The
Brotherhood militia is united and disciplined. The result: worse than
Afghanistan because the Islamists would have both the government and the
stronger military forces.

–These buffer zones would not receive Western air support or international forces.

–Israel has the experience of maintaining a buffer zone in southern
Lebanon for years by supporting a militia group. It succeeded for a long
time by sending in Israeli troops covertly and taking casualties. In
the end, rightly or wrongly, the effort was given up. Now Hizballah—the
equivalent though not the friend of the Syrian Salafists—is sitting on
the border and already one war has been fought. It should be noted that
Israel has by far the most defensible border with Syria.

–A situation is being set up in which a future Muslim Brotherhood
regime in Syria can blackmail the United States. Either it will force
Washington to accept whatever it does (including potential massacres) by
threatening to unleash Salafist forces on its borders or it will
actually create confrontations.

–Why isn’t the United States working full-time to stop the arms flows
to the Islamists by pressuring the Saudis and Qataris (perhaps the
point of Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip but hardly effective) and
to rein in Turkey’s enthusiasm for a Syrian Islamist regime?

Speaking of Turkey, now we see the reason for the attempted
Israel-Turkey rapprochement, because on top of everything else there
will be a Kurdish-ruled zone not run by moderates but by the Syrian
affiliate of the radical PKK, which is at war with Turkey.

So this is the likely fruit of the Syrian civil war, though that
conflict is far from over. The old regime is still alive. What U.S.
policy has helped to do is to create a big new threat to Turkey, Jordan,
Iraq, and Israel. It’s also a threat to Lebanon, but since the Syrian
Islamists will target the Iran-backed Hizballah there, Washington
doesn’t mind.

What does this have to do with Benghazi?

Read this paragraph from the Washington Post:

Obama administration officials have expressed repeated
concern that some of about 20,000 of the weapons, called MANPADS, have
made their way from the arsenals of former Libyan dictator Moammar (sic)
Gaddafi to Syria.

This weapons system might be the most technologically impressive arms
ever to fall into the hands of terrorists. Once Libya’s regime fell
(another U.S. foreign policy production), these weapons were grabbed by
the Libyan rebels and sold to the Saudis and Qataris, who supplied them,
respectively, to the Syrian Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to reliable sources, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was
in Benghazi trying to get those MANPADS back and was negotiating with
radical militias toward that goal. Stevens was doing something
good—trying to take weapons out of the hands of terrorists—and not
running weapons to terrorists.

Yet that doesn’t mitigate the mess unleashed by the administration’s
policy. At any rate, Stevens and these efforts failed. The money was too
good for the Libyan insurgents to pass up, not to mention helping
fellow Islamists and anti-Americans. And now thousands of advanced,
easily launched anti-aircraft systems are in the hands of
anti-Jordanian, anti-Iraqi, anti-Israeli, and possibly anti-Turkish
terrorists.

And just imagine the very real possibility of commercial passenger
planes being shot at, or even shot down, by terrorists armed with a
weapon they obtained because of U.S. government ineptitude or even
involvement.

by Thomas LifsonThe
Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood, has endured decades of political
repression in Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, and
finally has achieved its goal of political power (with a big assist from
Barack Obama who turned his back on US ally Hosni Mubarak). It turns
out that running Egypt isn't quite as easy as the former dictator made
it look. In fact, it is really easy to alienate the populace and perhaps
discredit the movement.

Writing in Real Clear World, Zvi Mazel explains how the Brothers have "bitterly disappointed the people who had put their faith in them."

Nothing
has been done to improve their lot. Upon taking office Morsi had
promised - and failed - to take care of five burning issues within a
hundred days: growing insecurity, monster traffic jams in the capital,
lack of fuel and cooking gas, lack of subsidized bread, and the mounting
piles of refuse in the streets.The
president's high-handed attempt to take over all legislative powers and
grant himself full immunity provoked such an outcry that he had to back
down. He sacked the prosecutor-general and appointed a new one - only
to have his decision overthrown by the Cairo Court of Cassation last
week, throwing the judicial system into disarray.It
seems that such unwise and unpopular moves were taken without prior
consultations with his advisers and that in fact it was the Supreme
Guidance Bureau of the Brotherhood which had urged Morsi to do so. In
other words, the president is acting as a proxy for the movement.Dissatisfaction
is now evident everywhere. Elections held in students' union throughout
the country saw Brotherhood candidates defeated by independent
candidates. Worse, elections to the key Journalists' Syndicate saw the
victory of Diaa Rashwan, head of Al-Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic studies and bitter opponent of the Brotherhood.

It
could get much worse for Egyptians under the Brotherhood's tender
governance. The country has virtually no foreign reserves with which to
pay for necessary food imports. Poor Egyptians depend on government
subsidized bread for survival, and when the money runs out, they will
start to starve. Tourism, one of the biggest sources of foreign
exchange, is drying up. The military has the guns, and they have been
dependent on American aid for decades.

Even worse: the people are turning against them:

Dissatisfaction
is now evident everywhere. Elections held in students' union throughout
the country saw Brotherhood candidates defeated by independent
candidates. Worse, elections to the key Journalists' Syndicate saw the
victory of Diaa Rashwan, head of Al-Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic studies and bitter opponent of the Brotherhood.In other words the movement is losing both the youth and the elites.

Of
course, in Iran, the people long ago turned against their Muslim
fundamentalist rulers, but the regime endures (in no small part thanks
to President Obama ignoring the Green Revolution during his first term).
But Iran has oil, while Egypt has tourism. A starving populace is not
likely to put up with promises of religious comfort in the afterlife if
they are starving in the here and now.

The
stakes in Egypt are enormous. Because of the influence of Radio Cairo,
the Egyptian film industry and television, the country has great
visibility in the Arab world. If the MB goes down in the flames of
incompetence, lessons will be drawn elsewhere.

Tensions
are rising between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and
across the Gaza border, fueled by baseless accusations by Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas that Israel was responsible for the death of a
jailed Palestinian prisoner afflicted by cancer.

So how does the New York Times
report this event? With equal, balanced coverage of hard medical
evidence pitted against the Abbas-led Palestinian hue-and-cry campaign?
Forget it. The Times long ago shed its "all the news that's fit
to print'' motto, substituting an all-out pro-Palestinian agenda to
shape its news coverage.

Here
is Kershner's lead paragraph: "Israeli-Palestinian tensions rose
sharply on Wednesday with a resumption of clashes at the Gaza border as
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails declared a three-day hunger
strike to protest a fellow inmate's death, saying Israel was
responsible."

Is
Israel responsible for the death of Palestinian terrorist Maysnia Abu
Hamdiya, serving a life term for sending a suicide bomber to a Jerusalem
café? To say the least, this is a highly inflammatory charge. But does
it stand up to further scrutiny? And what does Israel have to say about
it? And what evidence is there?

Given
the highly-charged accusation against Israel in the lead paragraph, one
might expect prompt placement of Israel's response and the actual
medical findings. Say in the second or third paragraph? But not at the Times.

After
her lead paragraph, Kershner diverts instead to this week's clashes
between Israel and the Palestinians, returning to Hamdiya's death only
in the 13th paragraph, which mentions in the second sentence that he had
been diagnosed with throat cancer.

It
is not until the 16th paragraph -- in a 17-paragraph story -- that
Kersner finally mentions that Israel had conducted an autopsy in the
presence of a Palestinian expert of forensic medicine, which found that
the imprisoned Palestian terrorist had died from "complications of
cancer" and had been a heavy smoker.

Even
that doesn't begin to tell the full story. Kershner omits the specific
findings of the autopsy which make it clear that the cancer
complications were so vast and had spread so far that Hamdiya's
condition was beyond any possible medical treatment -- the throat cancer
had spread to the lungs, neck, chest, liver, spine and ribs. Also, the
autopsy showed "no evidence of bruising" -- a clear indication that the
prisoner had not been subjected to physical abuse or torture. None of
this appears in Kershner's piece.

Yet,
having reported in her lead paragraph Palestinian propaganda that
"Israel was responsible" for Hamadiya's death, shouldn't Kerhsner have
disclosed all available evidence to the contrary -- and played it near
the top of her article? She, of course, did neither.

When
it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian propaganda
trumps hard Israeli evidence at the Times, with the latter getting
back-of the-bus treatment, or no mention at all.

Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/nyt_stokes_israeli-palestinian_tensions.htmlCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Most
recent news on hacking has centered on China’s data theft from U.S.
companies. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters have drawn much less
attention, even though in late March they temporarily disabled the online banking systems of American Express and Wells Fargo Bank, both major U.S. financial players. The inspiration for the attacks is instructive.

Izz al-Din al-Qassam was a Syrian preacher of jihad killed in a
guerilla attack against the British in 1935. He inspired the PLO’s
Yasser Arafat and the Islamic Resistance Movement, the military wing of
Hamas, is named after him. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters first
launched their campaign the week of September 11, 2012, when jihadists
attacked U.S. embassies in several countries, most notably Libya, where
they killed four Americans including ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The pretext was not any U.S. diplomatic or military action – indeed,
the United States had aided anti-Gadaffi Libyan rebels – but an internet
video “Innocence of Muslims,” reportedly portraying the prophet
Muhammad as a fraud. Few had seen the trailer, which Hillary Clinton,
then U.S. Secretary of State, called “disgusting and reprehensible.”
Susan Rice, president Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, claimed
the Libya attack was “spontaneous – not a premeditated response” to
“this very offensive video that was disseminated.” She did not say by
whom.

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters claimed that Western agencies
made the film and demanded that it be removed from YouTube. They
launched “Operation Alababil,” a series of attacks
on Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PNC and other U.S. financial
heavyweights in “revenge in response to the humiliation of the
Organization of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) by some Western countries.”

Richard A. Clarke a former National Coordinator for Security,
Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism, told ABC news that it
was the first time an entity from the Middle East, perhaps a government,
“had attacked websites, critical infrastructure in the United States.”
The hackers claimed to be independent defenders of Islam taking orders
from no one. But senator Joseph Lieberman and American computer security
experts saw the hand of Iran in the attacks, more intense than those
Russia directed at Estonia in 2007. Experts note that financial
disruption is the calling card of state-sponsored attacks and the
sophistication far exceeded the level of amateurs. It is entirely
possible that Iran was responding to Western economic sanctions using
the al-Qassam group as its proxy and the video as the pretext.

The Al Qassam squad continued the attacks until late October, 2012,
then resumed the campaign in December claiming the attacks would
continue until the U.S. government pulled the video off YouTube. The
attacks have continued in March 2013, on the same pretext and with the
same solution: pull the video and the attacks will stop. One doubts it,
and now the context is different.

Jihadist mobs are not currently besieging American embassies and
murdering ambassadors. On the other hand, Iran, an Islamic regime with a
harem of carefully fondled hatreds, particularly for the United States,
continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons. North Korea has canceled its
armistice with the United States and continues to rattle its nuclear
saber. As Americans face this double nuclear jeopardy, they might keep
some realities in mind.

U.S. officials are fond of claiming that the nation is not at war
with Islam but the cyberattacks are evidence that supremacist Islam
remains at war with the United States and its allies. The video pretext,
meanwhile, was a phony from the beginning, part of a carefully planned
series of terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities and interests. The
renewed attacks by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters should serve
as a reminder that the Obama administration, acting through Hillary
Clinton and Susan Rice, essentially parroted a jihadist propaganda ploy.

That sent a strong signal to al-Qassam, al Qaeda, Hamas, Iran and
North Korea alike. If any terrorist group or nation seeks to attack the
United States with weapons of mass destruction, the conditions are now
the most favorable they can expect. The world is now more dangerous than
during the Cold War when the Soviet nuclear arsenal was the major
threat.

It is not the failure of the
Saudi Arabia and Qatar to "step up" that will foment extremism in the
Middle East; rather, it is they who are fomenting it. They must step
down, not "up." It is these states' sponsorship of jihadists and other
extremists that brings about the turmoil and the bloodshed.

Many journalists, instead of letting facts speak for themselves,
frequently seem partial to making idealistic predictions and sweeping
statements about the Middle East. Although no newspaper or government
predicted the "Arab Spring," once it happened, much of the media
declared that an era of prosperity, equality and democracy was about to
transform the Middle East into a modern region with modern aspirations.

The Guardian, in fact, was so desperate to justify its
original support for the "Arab Spring" that it recently produced a
straight-faced editorial in which it claimed that Egyptian President
Morsi's power-grab against the judiciary was a necessary act to
guarantee Egypt's democratic aspirations.

The latest journalist to pick up the wrong end of the stick is Tim Montgomerie, who recently penned an opinion piece for The Times, entitled "The Arab world must act – or face disaster." Montgomerie claims:

Unless the Gulf states stump up their share of aid, the refugee problem will fuel extremism across the region.The governments that need to step up to the plate are the region's
rich oil powers, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar … David Cameron fears
that a failure to answer calls for help from the moderate Syrian
opposition will mean extremist elements will become increasingly
dominant. The process of radicalisation of the anti-Assad forces is
already well under wayIf they don't get aid inside Syria soon, a refugee crisis of enormous
scale will not just cause widespread human misery, it will fuel
extremism in Jordan, Lebanon and throughout the region. A very great
deal is at stake.

It seems to have escaped Montgomerie's attention that the leading
funders of "extremist elements" within Syria are Saudi Arabia and Qatar –
the very two countries he calls upon to "step up" and provide a
solution.

Once the possibility of unrest in the Gulf started to die down last
year, the Saudi Arabian government began, as described by Joshua Jacobs
of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, to "unchain their clerical soft
power."

State-controlled Saudi television regularly features pro-jihadist
clerics. Sheikh Adnan al-Arour, for example, is a Syrian Salafist who
calls for holy war against the Assad regime. He receives prime-time
coverage on Saudi television. "Extremist elements" in Syria, such as the
Supporters of Allah Brigade, have declared their allegiance to this
Saudi-supported preacher.

Saudi Arabia, threatened by Iranian hegemony, is keen to dethrone the
Iran-backed Assad and replace him with a Sunni-friendly regime. Their
weapon of choice seems to be state-managed jihad.

Qatar is now the chief backer of the Muslim Brotherhood -- from Cairo and Gaza to the Brotherhood fighters in Syria. Al Jazeera, the influential media station owned by the Qatari Government, has assigned
its Syria desk to Ahmed Ibrahim, the brother of Anas al-Abdah, a member
of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council. Al Jazeera
has, unsurprisingly, produced a number of puff pieces about the anti-regime Islamists in Syria.

According to reports, it is the jihadists within Syria who are receiving the bulk of the weapons sent from Saudi and Qatar. The Independent
notes that the extremist jihadist group, Jabhat al-Nusra -- declared a
terrorist group by the United States in December 2012, and which claims
to be an ally of al-Qaeda -- has become one of the most able fighting
forces precisely thanks to the vast supplies of money and arms sent from
Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

It is not the failure of these two Gulf States to "step up" that will
foment extremism in the Middle East; rather, it is they who are
fomenting it. They must step down, not up. It is these states'
sponsorship of jihadists and other extremists that brings about the
turmoil and the bloodshed.

Montgomerie is not only a columnist for the Times, he is also
considered one of the most influential conservatives in Britain. His
columns are regarded as an expression of government policy, albeit more
candid than the official line.

If I were a jihadist, I would feel extremely comfortable right now.
If I were a secular Syrian fighting against despotism, I would feel very
alone. If I were Tim Montgomerie, I would stop talking.

Salafist Call and Nour Party will host a conference in Cairo on Friday
to 'reveal dangers' of spreading Shia teaching in Egypt; spokesperson of
Shiites in Egypt claims all Shiites are welcome except those from Iran

Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks to Egypt's President

Mohammed Morsi
after his speech during the 16th summit of the

Non-Aligned Movement in
Tehran, August 2012 (Photo: Reuters)

The Salafist Call and its political arm, the Nour Party, will hold a
conference on Friday in an attempt to condemn what they claim is the
‘spread of the Shiite tide in Egypt.’

The conference will take place in the Amr Ibn Al-Ass Mosque in the
historic Fustat Cairo and is an attempt to show the differences between
Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam, "that originates in the doctrine
itself,” Sheikh Sherif El-Hawary, leading member of the Salafist Call,
said in a press release.

"Egypt is a real catch because the Shiites see it as the main base for
Sunni Islam, which they want to overtake. They believe their Mahdi
[twelfth Imam] will only appear once Egypt is in their reach, but God
willing, this will not take root", asserted El-Hawary.

"We truly believe that the Shiites will fail in spreading their
influence just as they did when they initiated the Al-Azhar Institution
and ruled for 260 years to take over Sunni Islam," he added.

Referring to the economic situation of the country, El-Hawary stated
that this period is most significant, turbulent and threatening, which
the Shiites are attempting to take advantage of.

The main objection against the Shiite sect is that they have attempted
to change the word of God and the Holy Quran, in addition to their
rejection of all of the Prophet's companions except a few, which is a
clear violation of Islam," He further claimed.

The conference will be an attempt to reveal the ‘truth’ behind the
Shiite sect and present the ‘dangers’ of its attempts at influencing
Egyptian society by shedding light on a number of its betrayals
throughout history, including what El-Hawary states is their ‘alliances’
with the US in aiding their ‘invasion’ of Afghanistan and Iraq.

On a similar note, spokesperson of the Shiites in Egypt, Bahaa Anwar
Mohamed called on Salafists and Wahabi's to organise protests outside
the Iranian embassy in Cairo against the recent resumption of Iranian
tourism to Egypt. He called on the expulsion of the charge d'affaires of
the Iranian envoy to Egypt.

Anwar added that before such normalisation of relations between Iran
and Egypt takes place, the regime in Iran has to change, asserting
"Egypt should nevertheless welcome all Shiites to Egypt, except those
from Iran."

"Iran's Shiites attempt to spread political Islam in the form of Shiism
that is affected by Ayatollah Khomeini, as opposed to Egypt's Shiites
attempting to spread it in loyalty to Prophet Mohamed," asserted Anwar.

He further claimed that Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, from which
President Mohamed Morsi hailed, are using the recent wave of tourism to
Egypt as a warning in an attempt to blackmail the Gulf countries and
attain money from them.

Anwar concluded by stating that he was against all forms of theocracies
and regarded them "failed states" since religion in this case is used
and abused for the benefit of those in power, referring to Somalia,
Sudan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

There has been increased criticism by many Egyptians, specifically by
Salafists groups, regarding the return of diplomatic ties between Egypt
and Iran, with fears expressed of the rising influence of the Shiite
branch of Islam in the country.

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s historic February visit to Egypt — the first
visit of an Iranian leader to the country since the 1970s — was met with
severe criticism from Salafist groups who issued a statement warning Ahmedinejad not to visit Tahrir Square.

Nevertheless, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar demanded for the former to stop promoting Shiism in ‘Sunni Egypt’.

Several Shiite activists in Egypt, however, claim that many of the
attacks on the sect in Egypt have been an attempt at scapegoating them
for the fears of normalisation of Egypt’s relations with Iran in the
face of several Gulf countries. Ahram OnlineSource: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/68461/Egypt/Politics-/Salafists-to-hold-conference-against-spread-of-Shi.aspxCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Ahead of the massive cyberattack threatened
for April 7, Facebook accounts of 15,000 Israelis are hacked • Israel's
cyber bureau assures citizens vital infrastructure is secure • IDF
pilots and some soldiers ordered not to use their real names on social
networks.

The looming massive
cyberattack on Israel is already being felt on Facebook.

|

Photo credit: GettyImages

An international hacktivist group has claimed
it will launch a giant cyberattack against Israel this Sunday (April 7),
and the first signs of it may have been seen Wednesday, when some
15,000 Israeli Facebook users found that their computers had been
attacked by a powerful virus that traveled through the social network.

On Wednesday afternoon, a Facebook user named
Bekir Yangeç sent out an apparently innocuous but malicious link. The
link directed users to the address orospumtugcebakir.com, and connected
the unwitting victims to the malicious IP address 87.98.175.60.

About 15,000 Israeli Internet users clicked on
the link, thereby sharing it with their Facebook friends without the
original Facebook user's knowledge.

According to the URL-shortening service
BIT.ly, Yangeç's Facebook profile has been removed, but his link
continues to wind its way through the social media website between
Facebook friends. Facebook users rendered their computers vulnerable to
the virus by clicking "Like" on an external website. The malicious
software then transformed those users' computers into portals through
which the virus could attack other computers.

To prevent their system's corruption, users
who clicked on the link must make sure they do not approve any new
Facebook applications. If they have already done so, they need to remove
the application immediately and change their Facebook password.

Meanwhile, also on Wednesday, a unique
cyberattack affected the Google Chrome browser. The malicious program
Theola tells hackers when a user logs onto the site of a major bank,
documents their activity, and sends the information to a third party.
Most of the attacks were seen in Holland and Norway, but hundreds of
Israeli computers were also compromised.

Avnet Information Security Cyber Security Team
Manager Roni Bachar played down the supposed impending major
cyberattack, which an international hackitivist group said it had
scheduled for Sunday. Bachar said he believed attacks on various
commercial enterprises in Israel had already been carried out over the
past weeks and months, and that those to be carried out on April 7 would mostly be showpieces, as the public release of data that had already been gathered secretly.

The planned assault is part of hacktivist
group Anonymous's ongoing #OpIsrael campaign, which was launched in
March in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. As part of the
campaign, Anonymous — which has since been joined by several other
hacktivist groups including Sector404 and RedHack — said it would
"launch a coordinated, massive cyberattack on Israeli targets with the
intent of erasing Israel from the Internet."

"All of these threats are nothing new," said
Bachar. "The [hacktivists] have no new tricks up their sleeve, aside
from pinpointing the event to a specific day."

"The goal is to scare people, there isn't
necessarily a real danger that will directly impact Israeli citizens,"
Amichai Shulman, vice president of technology at Imperva, told Israel
Hayom.

'Israel is protected'

The national cyber bureau in the Prime Minister's Office was quick to allay public fears following the attack.

"Israel is prepared and protected from
cyberattacks. Not every virus is an attack," the office stated. At the
same time, the bureau expects continued assaults on Israeli web sites
for the psychological effect they have on the public.

Israel's political echelon believes that
Israel's essential infrastructure as well as Israeli economic and
financial systems are well protected.

"No system is hermetically sealed, but all the
necessary preparations and protections have been undertaken," said a
political source.

"The attempts to attack Israeli websites are
an ongoing, routine occurrence," said Rami Efrati, a senior department
head in the civilian sector of the cyber bureau. "Israel is frequently
attacked by terror groups, hacktivists and hackers. Their goal is to
crash Israeli websites."

Staff at the cyber bureau said that an
organized attack could cause various sites to crash temporarily. But
this would not affect vital infrastructure, which is less vulnerable to
attack.

Rather, various websites could go offline,
causing the public stress or panic. That is why the bureau views such
attacks as a form of terrorism.

"When they try to create psychological pressure on a country, that is a kind of terrorism," Efrati said.

At the same time Efrati does not believe we should reject the attacks outright, since hackers are getting better all the time.

"These are highly skilled people who are always sharing their information and methods," Efrati said.

Nevertheless, the bureau, along with Tehila,
the organization responsible for securing government ministries, is
constantly expanding and developing Israel's readiness, trying to stay
one step ahead of the hackers. Israel is widely viewed as having
impressive results in thwarting cyberattacks and developing advanced
anti-hacker products.

Information security professionals largely
believe that private citizens are more vulnerable than state or large
institutions. These organizations deploy a series of defenses that
constitute a "virtual Iron Dome." The government has asked citizens to
exercise caution and enter their "Internet protected space," advising
web users not to open unfamiliar files or click on unfamiliar links.

IAF pilots: Change your Facebook name

Soldiers and officers serving in units where
the names of servicemen are classified were recently warned not to use
their real names on Facebook and other social networks, Israel Hayom has
learned.

Pilots, air crews, soldiers and officers
serving in classified units received this order. At the same time,
according to the Israel Defense Forces, the cyber bureau still has
primary responsibility for the issue. The new regulation is part of an
IDF crackdown on holes in its information security. There is a
long-standing IDF order to soldiers not to post photos and information
about their IDF service on the Internet, particularly classified
information.

Some bases in the past have prohibited
telephones with cameras, and soldiers have been ordered to remove photos
from the Internet that indicated where they are serving. In addition,
IDF policy blocks Facebook, Twitter and Gmail on some IDF computers.

Lacking an official policy on a soldier's use
of social networks, the IDF in recent weeks decided to ramp up its
regulations, prohibiting soldiers whose names cannot be publicized in
the Israeli press from using their real names on social media websites.
It is possible that the order was born of an incident last year when a
Palestinian website published photos of Israelis it claimed were Israel
Air Force pilots.

"There is no specific order in the IDF as to how one
should identify oneself on social networks," the IDF Spokesman's Office
said in a statement. "At present, we are working on the issue. The
instructions will be disseminated to the pertinent people in the near
future."

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide
expressed anger at the Palestinian Authority during his visit to Israel
on Wednesday, following the discovery that the PA was using Norwegian
and British aid money to pay the salaries of convicted Palestinian
terrorists serving time in Israeli jails.

Last month, the Norwegian Parliamentary
Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs decided to probe the
Norwegian Foreign Ministry after Israel-based media watchdog Palestinian
Media Watch revealed that the PA may have been lying to Norway about
how the country's extensive financial aid was being used.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry under then
Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre had denied that its money was being
used to fund terrorists. Eide, who became foreign minister last
September, told the Norwegian parliament's investigative committee that
the PA had told Norway its funds were "used to cover canteen expenses"
for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The committee demanded clarification from the
Foreign Ministry. Eide responded by confessing that his ministry had
received "new information" that conflicted with the PA's claim that
Norwegian funds were not being used to pay convicted terrorists'
salaries, and that the PA may have been misleading Norway.

Norway's aid is delivered to the Palestinian
Authority through the World Bank. The Norwegian foreign minister wrote
that while Norway could earmark the funds, that would prevent it from
delivering the money via the World Bank to the PA together with the
contributions from other donors. The PA ultimately decides how the
"budget support" will be allocated, Eide wrote.

Palestinian Authority President Salam Fayyad
reiterated to Eide recently that part of the funds were meant as social
welfare payments to families whose principal provider was sitting in
jail. Fayyad denied that the funds were used to pay convicted
terrorists' salaries.

Eide told Fayyad that Norway found the funding
of prisoners convicted of terrorism, along with the prospect that the
PA may have misled Norway, to be "problematic."

Norwegian representatives told their
Palestinian counterparts that Norway planed on writing joint letter with
the U.K. asking the PA "for more details and further clarifications."

Eide was in Israel on Wednesday for a one-day
trip to Jerusalem to meet with Prime Minister and Foreign Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as International Relations Minister Yuval
Steinitz and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who will head the Israel
negotiating team with Palestinians if peace talks are restarted. Eide
also visited Cairo and Ramallah on his Middle East trip.